by ANMOL MADAAN Staff Writer
Former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi was sentenced to 30 days in jail on Monday, May 21 for using a webcam to secretly record his gay roommate Tyler Clementi with another man. The judge said that he did not consider this act a hate crime, and therefore Ravi was sentenced to 30 days in jail instead of the originally proposed 10 years. “I do not believe he hated Tyler Clementi,” Judge Glen Berman said. Berman said Ravi acted out of “colossal insensitivity” instead. On September 19, Clementi asked Ravi to leave the room so he could have a guest over. Ravi immediately went to his friend’s room and accessed his webcam to see Clementi kissing a man (identified in court by the initials M.B.). Ravi and his friend turned off the camera, but told their peers what they had witnessed. Two days later, Clementi asked for privacy again. Ravi went on his Twitter and gave his followers directions on how to access his webcam. The next night, Clementi jumped from the George Washington Bridge to his death. Ravi was convicted of 15 different criminal counts, including bias intimidation, tampering with evidence, and invasion of privacy. He tampered with evidence when he told his friends to tell the court that he turned on his webcam by accident. “I am glad that he did not get the 10 years of prison that could have been given to him. He learned his lesson and I feel bad for the man. I would have been outraged if he got over six months in prison,” said freshman Ryan Divins. Ravi was completely silent in court Monday. This silence cause the judge to yell at him for not even giving an apology. Ravi was also completely silent the day Clementi’s mother, Jane, helped him move into the dorm. Jane Clementi said that Ravi did not even get off of his computer to greet Tyler. Clementi’s brother, James, said that there was a time when an apology would have mattered to him. He continued to say that there was no point in giving one this late in the game. In Ravi’s case, the main crime was invasion of privacy. The question as to whether or not it was a hate crime continued to come up during the court session. Also, the suicide was strictly denounced as not the fault of Ravi, for there could have been many other factors that led to his jump. “You can’t prove it is Ravi’s fault. Period,” says freshman Shivum Shah. Furthermore, Ravi was not only sentenced with 30 days of prison, but also three years of probation, 300 hours of community service, a fine of $10,000, and cyber-bullying councilor programs. He was also kicked out of Rutgers University. Ravi turned down two plea deals, both with no time in prison. The prosecutors were disappointed by the sentencing, and plan to appeal it in the future.